PRESERVE YOUR TEETH IN NEW YORK CITY
What are Dental Implants?
Do dental implants require additional surgery? The answer is: maybe, maybe not.
Dental implants are routinely used to replace missing or failing teeth. Depending on how much bone has been lost because of periodontal disease or other conditions, a patient may require an additional procedure before receiving an implant.
However, advances in implant dentistry have reduced the need for extensive bone-grafting procedures in many cases.
What Are Dental Implants?
Originally developed in Sweden and Switzerland, an endosseous implant is a titanium post placed directly into the jawbone.
When titanium is placed next to bone, bone cells can attach to its surface without producing the inflammation or foreign-body reaction associated with many other materials.
This process is called osseointegration, and it forms the foundation of modern implant dentistry.
Why Additional Surgery May Be Necessary
People who have lost teeth because of periodontal disease may have very little supporting bone remaining. In some cases, the available bone may not be sufficient to accommodate a traditional dental implant.
In the past, many clinicians addressed this problem by adding—or grafting—bone into deficient areas of the jaw. This created enough support for the longer and wider implants that were commonly used at the time.
Two procedures frequently used to rebuild the jawbone are sinus lifts and ridge augmentations.
During a sinus lift, bone-grafting material is added beneath the sinus to increase the available bone height in the upper jaw. During ridge augmentation, bone is added to a deficient area of the jaw and covered with the surrounding gum tissue.
Depending on the procedure and the patient’s condition, healing may take up to nine months or longer.
These procedures can be costly and invasive, and their results are not always predictable. As implant research progressed, clinicians also began reevaluating the belief that longer and wider implants were always necessary.
Short Dental Implants May Reduce the Need for Bone Grafting
Today, six-millimeter dental implants may provide another option for appropriately selected patients with limited bone.
Long-term studies involving hundreds of patients have supported the use of short implants as a safe and viable treatment option in suitable cases.
Short dental implants have allowed some patients to avoid extensive bone-grafting procedures while still receiving stable, functional tooth replacements. As a result, the traditional philosophy of “the longer, the wider, the better” is gradually fading from implant dentistry.
